Goodbye Youtube and thanks for all the fish

Youtube let the other shoe drop in their end-stage enshittification this week. Last month, they required you to turn on Youtube History to view the feed of youtube videos recommendations. That seems reasonable, so I did it. But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices. It still did a pretty good job of showing me stuff I was interested in watching.

Then on Oct 1, they threw up a “You’re using an Ad Blocker” overlay on videos. I’d use my trusty Overlay Remover plugin to remove the annoying javascript graphic and watch what I wanted. I didn’t have to click the X to dismiss the obnoxious page.

Last week, they started placing a timer with the X so you had to wait 5 seconds for the X to appear so you could dismiss blocking graphic.

Today, there was a new graphic. It allowed you to view three videos before you had to turn off your Ad Blocker. I viewed a video 3 times just to see what happens.

Now all I see is this.

Google has out and out made it a violation of their ToS to have an ad blocker to view Youtube. Or you can pay them $$$.

I ban such sites from my systems by replacing their DNS name in my hosts file routed to 127.0.0.1 which means I can’t view the site. I have quite a few banned sites now.

Porka_911,

As a premium subscriber for many years, I and my family really get value. I do pay in UAH though.

Usernameblankface,
@Usernameblankface@lemmy.world avatar

I just got this for the first time today. I was able to dismiss it and go on to watch ad blocked YouTube on Firefox, but I wonder how much longer this will be an option. Nebula and Curiosity Stream are looking really good right now.

0Xero0,
@0Xero0@lemmy.world avatar

I just got this popup today too, but only in Brave, it doesn’t show up in Firefox and LibreWolf at all and I use uBlock Origin for all of them. Looks like it’s just a Chromium thing. I mainly use Firefox anyway, I only use Brave as a music player at work because I have too many FF tabs opened in 3 windows already.

iloverocks,

I don’t know what website you are listening to but if you can always use Firefox or one of its forks librewolf is Firefox made more perfect imao

You could also use the native program ex. Spotify etc.

0Xero0,
@0Xero0@lemmy.world avatar

I just listen to Youtube

iloverocks,

You could use freetube

Heisenburner,

I tried to watch a stream uploaded on YouTube and they put adrolls every 5 minutes, for a 3+ hour video. It was unwatchable. Sucks that pretty much every site is fucking over its users lately. Maybe it’s a sign I should just get away from the internet for a while.

kzhe,

But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices. It still did a pretty good job of showing me stuff I was interested in watching.

Why are you not using a Piped or Invidious instance?

kzhe,

You weren’t on Piped or Invidious already? /hj

Heavybell,
@Heavybell@lemmy.world avatar

Wait, what’s Youtube History?

jayands,

As in, the history of all the videos you’ve watched on the site

ryannathans,

Use an alternative front end like piped.video

You may want to try various instances (in preferences) as the main one has been under a lot of load

Deemo,

Silly question if you don’t mind me asking, when you got the pop up:

  • Which browser/adblocker where you using (also did you use any custom filters)?
  • What device are you watching youtube on when you saw the block (windows, macos, ios, android, linux)?
  • Where are you located? (like which country)

I never saw these popups just curious.

Also my setups using a web browser (no issues):

  • (Mac OS Soma) Firefox Stable with ublock origen stock filters
  • (iPadOS 17) with adguard safari content blocker stock filters

Setups with third part clients (no issues):

  • Revanced android
  • Smarttube (Fire TV)
  • YTLitePlus (iPadOS)
Maddie47,

Love a good Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference.

15liam20, (edited )

Actually, it’s a reference to the third book. I forget its title.

lath,

uBlock Origin is quite apt in not showing any of that. I am thankful for the creator’s attentiveness.

Rolder,

Odd, I have uBlock Origin and it’s blocking the ads without any pop ups or angry messages

Ibex0,

Same, the arms race is heating up.

RockyBass,

Same here. UBlock origin has been the gold standard for so long I’m surprised not everyone uses it.

sonovebitch,

I have uBlock Origin + SponsorBlock and I got the pop-up. However I can just close it and the video resumes, with no ads.

tristan,

I get blocked with ublock origin but not with ublock lite

mesamunefire,

They are doing it randomly for now. Not all users are getting the message.

Mio,

If there was no browser workaround i wound use a third party client and possibly selfhost it for family. Hard to get away from Youtube itself. I wonder how many % of the users actually use any adblockinf tool

Sunrosa,
@Sunrosa@lemmy.world avatar

whenever i get the ad thing (im using ublock) i just yt-dlp and then watch that way

dangblingus,

You don’t know how to use ublock origin so you’re abandoning the most useful and entertaining platform on the entire internet?

NOT_RICK,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

You’re right for now, but OP is right that Google has been actively making YouTube worse and worse. Imagine if they used their resources to make YouTube premium better instead of this bs.

atetulo,

the most useful and entertaining platform on the entire internet?

Lol, what?

Just say youtube, bro.

Fungah,

I’d argue that YouTube actually makes the Internet less useful overall.

Whereas once upon a time I could find information in text form NKW EVERYTHING IS A FUCKING VIDEO. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!? WHO IN THEIR RIGHT FUCKING MIND WANT TO FOLLOW ALONG WITH SOMETHING HAVING TO MASH THR LAUSE BUTTON AND REWIND THR VIDEO EVERY FOR[Y FUCJING SECONDS? JUST FUCKING STOP IT. AND IF ITSCOMPULSIVE DO THE RRST OF THE WORLD A FAVOUR AND TAKE A LOJG WALK OFF IF A SHORT PIER.

atetulo,

I think it’s nice to have both, but I get your point.

I’m mostly still able to find text explanations for what I need.

squirrelwithnut, (edited )

Ublock does not prevent this pop-up. Source: me. I started getting the pop-up tonight on Firefox with Ublock running. I was able to close the pop-up and watch the video without ads, but the extension does not hide it completely.

TheSanSabaSongbird,

It should be “So long YouTube and thanks for all the fish.” Goddammit!

If you’re going to borrow from Douglas Adams, at least get it right.

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